Nobodies
by jep772
Summary: Five "young offenders" from Boston make the choice of community service over jail time. Their crimes are nothing too serious, drunk driving, vandalism, breaking and entering... They all can tell right away that none of them will get along, but after they are caught in a freak electrical storm the group figures out quickly that they need to band together against new threats.
1. The Lucky Ones

A/N: As the description says, a group of Boston based young offenders find themselves caught up in a freak lightning storm, and must deal with the consequences. Just a heads up, there is lots of very coarse language throughout, and a bit of NSFW happenings later on in the story.

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Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

"You guys are the lucky ones. You've been given another chance to prove to society that you don't deserve to be locked up," the probation worker explained to the 5 youths standing before him. He had a name, of course, but none of them cared to remember it.

One girl, the youngest of them with perfect blonde hair and makeup, stood with her arms crossed, not looking at any of the others. With her weight on one hip and her apparent great interest in the ground, it was clear that she wanted nothing to do with the other young adults in the group. Her name was Samantha, or Sam, as she preferred to be called. Only her parents called her Samantha.

The boy closest to her had dark brown hair and smoldering eyes, and he was very much aware of it. He was no stranger to using his looks to get what he wanted from the girls. An unhappy grimace was set on his face while he observed the probation worker. His name was Luca.

A girl with dyed auburn hair and long fake fingernails was standing slumped sideways, inspecting her nails. She would've preferred to be in jail than doing community service, and she could tell already that she and the prissy girl standing away from them would not get along. She went by Rachel, even though her first name was Abigail. She hated her name and the woman she was named after.

Rachel was very aware of the boy slouched beside her, who was paying no attention to the probation worker, and more than enough attention to her breasts. His name was Kevin and he had orange hair which he let grow shaggy and curly, and more freckles than Rachel had ever seen on a person. In his mind he was wondering if he could get the girl with the red hair to have sex with him, and how he could get out of actually doing community service.

The boy who stood out most, but wished he didn't, was trying his very best to look small and stay away from the group. It was a hard thing to do for someone with a tall, slender build, golden hair and shocking green eyes. He wanted nothing to do with any of them, only to get his community service done. His name was Ryan, and the others didn't learn it for 3 days.

"Maybe through helping your community, you'll all learn a little something about yourselves," the probation worker suggested. "So everybody get the paintbrushes and cans, your first job is to paint over the graffiti on the back wall of the community center."

"You look familiar," Rachel said to Sam, leaning over to rest on a dry part of the wall. Sam gave her a sidelong glance. Rachel had unzipped her gray jumpsuit to show off her cleavage, and a pack of cigarettes stuck out of her back pocket. The way she had one eyebrow cocked in some kind of smug curiosity annoyed Sam. She sneered at the older girl and dipped the rolling brush in the tray of paint.

"How could you?" she countered. Sam hoped the implied _you're obviously a trashy slut and I'm a lady, our kinds don't mix so how could I know you? _was clear, but Rachel seemed stupid, so it might have gone over her head.

"She's right," Luca spoke up. "I've seen you someplace before. And you've got the same last name as the mayor, Samantha Ford." He hadn't spoken earlier, and now that Sam heard his thick Boston accent, she felt her stomach drop. He would certainly know her. She shrugged, trying to play it cool.

"Yeah, I'm familiar with the mayor's last name," she said. "It's pretty common."

"More than familiar with it, I'd say," Kevin scoffed. The others stared at him, not knowing what he meant. "Have you idiots ever turned on the news?" The general consensus was no, but Ryan only shrugged, and Sam rolled her eyes. Kevin could tell that Sam knew that he knew exactly who she was. He laughed, enjoying this bit of power he already had over her.

"She's the mayor of Boston's daughter! She vandalized some apartment building. Isn't that right, princess?" Kevin teased.

"Go fuck yourself!" Sam spat while the others laughed.

"You're the mayor's daughter?" Ryan asked incredulously. Luca's jaw dropped in amused surprise.

"You sure screwed up," Luca snickered. Sam flipped him off.

"I didn't screw up. I just got caught. If anything, I'm the victim!" Sam protested hotly.

"What did you do?" Ryan asked. "Vandalized a building?"

"Graffiti... But what I do isn't vandalism, it's art! None of this shit," Sam argued, gesturing with her paint brush to the curse words and penises spray painted onto the side of the community center. "I don't belong here," Sam grumbled. Rachel snorted.

"Alright, princess," Kevin laughed. "Keep tellin' yourself that. You're young offender scum, just like the rest of us!" He spread his arms wide as if in welcome.

"Shut up," Sam spat. "And quit calling me princess."

"Oh, but we're in the presence of royalty," Kevin mocked, bending at the waist to bow to her. "I guess everybody shows their true colors eventually, right? You probably feel more comfortable in this trashy neighborhood than up in Beacon Hill. That's no place for a criminal-"

"Why don't you go fuck yourself, you stupid asshole!" Sam yelled suddenly, flinging her paintbrush at him. Kevin cackled, though the brush hit him square in the chest. Rachel, Luca, and Ryan laughed too, and Sam stomped away furiously. She didn't deal well with people ridiculing her. She never had. It was always her tendency to blow up and storm off. She knew that it only made matters worse, but what else was there for her to do? It's not like she could talk to the slut and douchebags and make them understand her feelings and how immature their teasing was. Between the horror of them all recognizing her and the frustration of their teasing, Sam felt hot tears prick the corners of her eyes.

"Hey!" the probation worker appeared around the corner. "Where-where is she going?" he asked them, eyebrows knit in confusion and frustration. "What did you say?" He gestured to Kevin and the paint spattered across him.

"I dunno, she said something about having to fuck your mom," Kevin snickered. The other two stared at him.

"That wasn't funny," Luca said, his lip curled slightly in annoyance. The probation worker sighed impatiently, and jogged off after Sam.

"Hey!" he called softly when he spotted her. Sam froze and looked over her shoulder. There were tears in her eyes. "Sam, you can't run off-"

"I know, I'm sorry," she sniffed. "I shouldn't have run off, I just... they're all so fucking stupid and just... bad."

The probation worker nodded and sighed. Sam stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jumpsuit and stared around. She stopped listening to what the probation worker was saying to her almost immediately. He was trying to console her, and explain that she couldn't just lose it at the other "young offenders". That this was a learning experience, and blah blah blah. The quickly darkening sky was far more interesting than whatever he was saying.

"Sorry, but do you see this?" she interrupted, pointing at the sky. His light eyes snapped up to look at the black cloud spreading across the sun, and his jaw fell in surprise. Lightning sparked across the sky like lattice work.

"We need to get inside. Let's get the others," he said urgently. They ran back to the group, and found them standing in a nervous circle, looking at the sky.

"What the fuck is going on with the clouds?" Rachel cried.

"This is wicked weird, you guys I've never seen this happen before..." Ryan said nervously.

"Are you an expert on weather?" Luca asked condescendingly.

"It's okay guys, Weatherman Tim is here to tell us that this shit is fucking weird," Kevin taunted Ryan. Just then thunder rolled through the sky and lightning struck down in several places. Hail began to pelt the pavement around them. It seemed that every second the hail grew larger, until chunks of ice the size of small cars crashed down from the clouds. Everybody screamed and began to run in different directions.

"Back! Back inside!" the probation worker commanded. Everyone turned their terrified running towards the entrance to the community center, trying frantically to dodge the massive pieces of ice raining down from the sky. Sam tripped over a root poking from the cement and she sprawled on the ground with a cry. Luca staggered to a slower pace, and helped her up to continue running, both only barely escaping being crushed.

And then the lightning struck. One long fork of pure electricity arced down from the sky and rocked through all 6 of them. The feeling of white hot energy coursing through them was something none of them would forget. And for each person the sensation was slightly different. Kevin felt as if a tiny sun was being pushed into his heart, the heat unbelievable. Rachel felt weightless, like she could vanish or fall through the asphalt they were running on. Sam's whole body seemed to be buzzing, like every cell was rearranging itself over and over. Ryan thought his head might explode from the pressure, and his tongue especially felt electric as he was zapped. Luca strangely felt more alive, more powerful, almost. He felt the lightning in his bones but it did not hurt like he expected it to. And the probation worker felt his heart tighten, his brain felt like it was being twisted in his skull, and a deep pulsating feeling erupted in his lower abdomen.

Of course overall it felt like one might expect being struck by lightning would feel like. But later that night at the bar or in their beds when they thought about the event, they would realize how strange it were unconscious for mere minutes. When the group was dragged back into the waking world by the sounds of car alarms, the storm had passed. Stray hail pellets and raindrops pattered the ground. The clouds looked far less menacing, and the lightning storm had ended.

"Fucking hell..." Kevin groaned, sitting up on his elbows.

"We were just struck by lightning," Ryan stuttered. "We should be dead. Why aren't we dead?"

"Way to make us feel better, dickhead," Rachel snapped, standing unsteadily.

"Is everybody okay?" the probation worker asked. Sam nodded, and rubbed her eyes. Luca jumped up, feeling incredibly jittery.

"Can-can we just take a break?" Kevin asked shakily. "To recover from what we've just been through? I don't feel up to painting anymore."

"You're just trying to weasel your way out of community service," the probation worker coughed.

"Hey but you know what they say?" Kevin pointed out. "Never tease a weasel. The weasel will not like it, and teasing isn't ni-"

"Shut the fuck up, you stupid fucking idiot!" Sam cut in. Everybody was surprised by her furious outburst, but after a moment, Rachel started laughing. Then Luca joined in, snickering quietly, and Ryan began to chuckle as well. Kevin fixed them all with an incredulous stare as the group fell into stupid laughter.

"We were just hit by lightning, and we all survived!" Rachel gasped between giggles.

"The chances of being hit by lightning is like 1 in 700,000 which is a greater chance than winning the lottery. I guess we're all pretty lucky," Ryan concluded.

"Yeah, well what's the chance of winning the lottery?" the probation worker asked dryly. Ryan thought for a moment.

"I think it's 1 in 13 million."

"Maybe tomorrow we'll win the lottery."


	2. What Rachel Saw

Rachel crept through the unlocked back door and hurried to the locker room. The keys to her apartment had to be somewhere in there. She felt like such an idiot for not noticing all night at the bar that she didn't have them. She searched sourly through the pockets of her jumpsuit, and then on the floor, using her cell phone to cast a dim light. She didn't want to turn the bright fluorescent ceiling lights on and possibly alert somebody that she had broken into the community center, so the search was slow-going. But eventually her hands brushed up against the hard metal of her house keys at the end of one of the rows of lockers.

Suddenly there was a loud banging sound. Somebody was coming towards the locker room, and being very loud about it.

_ 'Fuck, I can't get caught in here,'_ Rachel thought as she frantically ducked behind the lockers. The door swung open with a violent clang and two people entered. In the darkness it was hard to recognize them, but one, clearly a girl, was struggling weakly in the arms of the bigger person. Rachel's heart began to beat fast in her chest. What was happening? Her mind immediately cried _rape_, and she prepared herself in intervene.

"Did you bite me, you stupid whore?" the man yelled suddenly. Rachel tried to make herself as tiny and invisible as possible as he flung the girl to the floor. The impact left her dazed, and he took the moments to grab her by her hair. Rachel felt frozen by fear and astonishment, unsure if it would be wise for her to do something directly. With shaking fingers she tried to unlock her phone and dial the police.

"Stop struggling and it'll be okay," he cooed, his voice taking on a chilling softness. Rachel's stomach gave a sickening twist, and she felt alcohol she had consumed earlier burn in the back of her throat, threatening to reemerge. Because she knew that voice. That was the voice of the probation worker. Rachel chanced a look around the edge of the lockers and could see the girl blinking blearily.

"Why would I stop struggling? You can suck my dick, you bastard," she spat. For one fleeting moment Rachel admired her bravery, but in the same moment, the probation worker pulled a knife from his pocket and plunged it into the girl's chest. She shrieked and gurgled as he stabbed her repeatedly with violent force. Rachel screamed and scrambled to her feet, only to realize that she had nowhere to go. And the probation worker had heard her.

He stood and started quickly towards her. Terrified and imagining her imminent and painful death, Rachel staggered backwards, desperate to get away. Other senses faded away and all she could feel was her heart beat a strange rhythm, and Rachel plummeted straight through the wall she was leaning against. She found herself on the floor of some hallway a second later, gasping for air.

"What the fuck?" she gasped. Seconds later, she heard the locker room door crash open. She decided not to question the whole "falling through a wall" thing, instead electing to jump to her feet and run. She took a breath and ran through the walls and closed doors of the community center until fresh air and sounds of Boston at midnight hit her. Even then she paused only for a moment to slow her rapidly beating heart before taking up her panicked sprint once more.


	3. An Easy Lie

"Emilia," Luca called as he stepped inside. "I'm home! And I brought ice cream and that new Disney Princess movie. I know you wanted to see it." He dropped his bag by the stairs and jogged up them, turning down the small, tight hallway to his younger sister's room. He knocked before entering the little bedroom, painted pink and blue, with the only window with a nice view in the tiny apartment. His little sister was pushing herself into a sitting position when he entered. She smiled at him, and Luca couldn't help smiling too, seeing the way her eyes lit up at the prospect of ice cream and a new movie.

"You timed it right," she told him, scooting over so there would be room on her bed for Luca to sit. She watched him put the DVD in her Minnie Mouse television and waited eagerly for him to open the ice cream and hand her a spoon. "Mama and Dad only left a few minutes ago."

"Good," Luca sighed, sitting down and gently caressing her hairless head. "I wouldn't want you to be alone for long."

"A princess should always have her servants around to keep her company," Emilia tutted. Luca laughed.

"I'm only your servant?" he teased.

"My favorite servant," Emilia amended with a sweet smile. She dug her spoon into the vanilla ice cream, happy with the movie and the treat.

"Did you make any friends today?" she asked during a part of the film she apparently found dull. Luca shrugged.

"Community service isn't really the place you make friends," he told his sister. She frowned.

"Are the other kids mean to you?"

"Not yet. And even if they were, I could beat them up, just like Flynn Rider. Only better, because I'm a black belt in karate," Luca said with an official nod.

"Oh yeah, you are," Emilia mumbled, apparently content. Luca fixed her with an odd stare. He wasn't a black belt in anything, and she knew that. Was Emilia just trying to play along? Luca wasn't sure. It seemed to him more like she believed the joke.

His parents got home just after Emilia went to sleep that night.

"How was your date?" Luca asked them with a slightly forced smile when they walked into the kitchen.

"It was nice. How was she tonight?" his mother asked. Luca's smile fell instantly. He didn't like seeing her so tired. He knew she and their father loved Emilia dearly, but dealing with the little girl's cancer was only wearing her down. Just a few years ago his mother was gorgeous. Now her every pore seemed to exude age. His father had many more gray hairs shining through the sleek black than before.

"Much better than yesterday," he lied. No reason for his mother to know how much more frail Emilia looked today. "She was happy I brought her a movie, and she even got out of bed without help," he added another lie easily. His father nodded and gave him a gruff smile.

"She's a tough one," he said sadly. Luca tried to smile again, but found it hard. He didn't want to lie to his parents, but he didn't want to bring a sour end to their evening. And they so easily believed his lie.

"How was the first day of community service?" his mother asked.

"How was your food?" Luca grumbled back, not wanting to talk about it.

"Don't try to deflect my question, young man," his mother snapped.

"Sorry Mama. I wasn't deflection your question though," he said lamely. And for some reason his mother seemed completely satisfied with that. She shrugged and got herself a glass of water. Luca stared at her, unsure of why she didn't press the issue. He decided it would be best not to ask, though.

"Well, I just wanted to talk to you guys before I went to sleep. Long day of serving the community tomorrow," he grunted as a way to excuse himself. His parents said goodnight, but as Luca quietly went to his bedroom, he couldn't help wondering why him mom had seemed to give up her inquiry the moment he said that he hadn't "deflected her question".


	4. The Wrong Reflection

Sam picked unhappily at the scone on her plate in front of her. She wanted to go home, but didn't want to face her parents. They were disappointed in her, she knew, but they never actually said it. They dodged around the subject of her graffiti and community service, and it just lead to uncomfortable silences and awkward attempts at conversation. Why couldn't she be perfect, like her older sister? A law student at Harvard was what she should have strived for. Even her younger brother, Michael, was a better child than she; he was so smart in math that he was taking high school level courses at only 12. Instead, Sam was the "artsy" child. The one who tried her hardest to fit the mold her parents wanted, and could almost do it, but something invariably went wrong at every turn. This time it was a fast, determined police officer.

So to avoid their faces, she decided to sit and sulkily pick at a scone in a Starbucks. Things only got worse when she looked up and saw two girls whom she had gone to high school with. They hadn't seen her yet, but Sam knew that when they did, they would surely speak down to her and only make her feel worse. She had never been bullied in school, but these girls were bitches. No other way to put it. They lived to make others feel bad so that they might feel superior. She wished desperately to be somebody else. If only she could turn into another person entirely and disappear. Sam shivered. She didn't want them to notice her, but it was too late. They turned from the counter and one made eye contact with Sam, who smiled awkwardly.

"Uh, hey, Hannah," she mumbled.

"What?" Hannah paused before she walked out of the coffee store and gave Sam a strange look.

"Oh, uh, nothing, I was just saying hi," Sam explained, growing confused.

"Do you know her?" Meghan, the other girl, asked her friend, giving Sam a disdainful glare.

"No," Hannah scoffed. Before Sam could speak again, Hannah and Meghan pushed their way out of the Starbucks.

_ 'Those bitches, did they seriously just pretend like they didn't know me?'_ Sam thought furiously. She crossed her arms angrily and tossed her thick brown hair over her shoulder. But... her hair wasn't brown. It was blonde. She jumped up, startled and confused. The barista behind the counter saw her flailing and gave her a strange look. Sam smiled and tried her hardest not to sprint to the bathroom.

The girl staring wide-eyed back at her in the mirror was _not_ her. This girl was very tan, with thick brown hair and chocolate colored eyes. This girl did not have freckles on her nose or thin eyebrows. Not to mention her tits were bigger, stretching the fabric of her shirt. This girl was not Sam. So who was she? Sam was on the verge of a panic attack. She couldn't figure out what was happening. None of it made any sense.

"Slow down, Samantha, think," she whispered to herself. Sam squeezed her eyes shut and counted to 5, but when she opened her eyes again, the same girl was still staring back at her.


	5. A Fantastic Story

Rachel stood staring into her locker, imagining all the different ways to best breach the subject on her mind with the rest of the group. Or if she even should. And if she did, would she also tell them about how she can run through walls all of a sudden? Rachel glanced over at Sam a few lockers down from her. She was carefully running her fingers through her pin-straight blonde hair and puckering her lips at the mirror in her locker. Rachel almost sneered in distaste. She knew that this girl thought herself better than the rest of them. Just like everybody else in the world did.

But Rachel had made up her mind. As soon as the blond boy, Luca, and the idiot ginger showed up she would tell them all what happened. They _had_ to know.

"Good morning Big Red, Princess," Kevin said cheerily, greeting them both with bad nicknames. Rachel almost laughed at the face of disgust Sam gave him. Their dislike of Kevin was probably the only thing the two agreed on. As he stripped off his pants, revealing loose boxers with Jaws printed on the front, he whistled an off-key tune. Rachel didn't know what could possibly put him in such a good mood. All of a sudden she remembered the sound of the knife plunging into that poor girl's chest, and Rachel's stomach turned horribly. There was no sign that there had ever been a murder in the locker room last night, though. What if they didn't believe her?

"Ah, excellent, another gentleman," Kevin said as the blond boy shuffled in. "Now we can talk about guy stuff, really start bonding. We didn't have time to get to know each other yesterday."

"Er, I guess not-"

"So last night this girl was riding me," Kevin began to tell a story about his latest sexual conquest but the boy -_'Dammit, what is his name?'_ Rachel wondered- turned sharply away, embarrassed, and opened his locker.

"Nobody wants to hear about some slut you banged, shit-for-brains," Sam said to him.

"You know, you've been saying lots of mean things to me, just in the little time we've known each other. I don't feel safe around you," Kevin argued back.

"And I don't around you. You're practically oozing STDs and stupidity. I might catch something," Sam snorted, more under her breath now, as she clearly was done interacting with him. Kevin still heard though.

"I'll have you know that my dick is cleaner than this locker room!"

Normally such a comparison wouldn't make any sense. Locker rooms are never clean, always smelling like sweat and threatening athlete's foot. But today this one smelled incredibly sterile. Like somebody had spent hours scrubbing it down with every cleaning agent they could think of. The four of them all took a short breath, equally puzzled. Then Sam caught the look of fear and understanding on Rachel's face. That didn't make any sense.

_'Maybe she's just afraid of soap,'_ Sam allowed herself to think. She felt a twinge of guilt though. That had been mean. Instead she asked, "What's that face for?" Rachel glanced at her, then back to the floor.

"I was going to wait until Luca got here too, but... last night I saw the probation worker kill a girl," Rachel told them quietly. There was silence, then Kevin laughed.

"Nice joke," he chortled. "Like that scrawny, do-gooder would kill somebody!"

"I saw him do it!" Rachel shouted angrily, jabbing one finger at his chest. "I was here looking for my keys and he-" she lowered her voice now "-he dragged some girl in and stabbed her to death."

"Are you sure you didn't hallucinate it?" Sam asked condescendingly, her lips pursed. Rachel felt her face grow hot with rage.

"I'm not a crack whore, you little bitch! I didn't imagine the whole thing!"

Just then Luca hurried into the locker room, late. He froze when he saw the tense semi-circle and Rachel looking like she was about to punch Sam in the face. He looked carefully between all of them before raising one eyebrow in a suspicious arc.

"Is somebody going to threaten somebody else every day of this ordeal?" he questioned.

"Rachel's just telling us a fantastic story," Kevin told Luca with a toothy grin.

"It isn't a story!" she insisted. Luca could tell that she was growing frustrated and upset with Kevin's teasing. He turned to Rachel and said, "Tell me what you told them."

"Last night I came here to get my keys. The probation worker busted in with some girl and he was beating on her wicked hard, then he stabbed her to death!" As she explained what happened, Rachel's voice grew tight. Luca could almost see the event happening over and over in her eyes, she was so distraught. "I screamed and ran. He didn't know it was me though. It was almost completely dark in here."

"Did you call the police?" Luca pressed. Relief washed over Rachel. He believed her. Unlike the little princess and Kevin, Luca had some sense. He was smart enough to see that she was telling the truth. She shook her head.

"I didn't know what to do. I was so scared. I-I just ran all the way to my apartment. I didn't even tell my roommate what was going on," she explained, her voice shaking. As Sam listened, she realized that Rachel was telling the truth. Nobody could fake that kind of fear. She felt bad for mocking her terror. Though at the same time wondered why Rachel didn't call the police. Sam wasn't exactly a fan of them, but that was definitely the sort of thing to call the authorities about.

"So... the same guy that was so nice and calm and 'give back to the community to become a better person' murdered a girl? Right here? In this locker room?" Ryan repeated slowly.

"That's why it smells so clean," Kevin said. "The bastard made sure to scrub the damn place down after he did the deed!" He saw Sam cover her mouth with her hands, as if she was suddenly deciding that this was all real and didn't like the idea of it. _Nut up_, he wanted to say to the girl. But he too had been hoping that Rachel was making a bad joke. It was crystal clear to him now that she really had witnessed what sounded like a rather grotesque murder.

It was quiet for a long time. They were all processing the information as best they could. Rachel couldn't stop herself from wondering if she might have saved the girl if she had just dialed the police or even stepped in.

"I think," Ryan said slowly, "we should just finish getting ready, and go out and do our community service. We don't want to be late. He might notice something is weird."

"Speaking of being late, how come you were?" Kevin asked Luca. He didn't really care, he was just hoping the reason was something embarrassing so he could make fun of it and ease the tension. Luca gave him a funny look and shrugged.

"Got held up by the bus," Luca said. Kevin saw Sam give him a puzzled look, but he couldn't imagine why. Of _course_ Luca got held up by a late bus. What other reason could there be? But Sam felt like that was a lie. She knew that was a lie. She didn't care why Luca was lying (she didn't care about any of them), she just_ knew_ it was a lie. She felt a tingle in her gut, right behind her naval. She didn't want to question him though. She didn't care, plus the others believed him, so they would harass her for asking questions.

Suddenly the probation worker flung the door open and entered. He paused, his eyes sweeping over the group, before he spoke. Rachel could have sworn that the now green eyes stayed on her a beat longer than the others.

"Everybody in the van. We're going to the park," he said flatly.


	6. The Puppy-Strangling Type

Rachel exchanged a furious glance with Ryan. Every time somebody walked past, Sam would either duck lower in the swan boat she was scrubbing or stand aside as if she wasn't part of the group. Though obviously she was, because she wore the exact same gray jumpsuit with the black words "CITY SERVICE" printed across the back. After half an hour she had unzipped the top and tied it around her waist so as to hide those words, desperately trying to not look like she was one of the others. The probation worker snapped at her angrily to put it back on properly and she argued back.

"It's hot!" she spat at him. "It's not as if I'm strutting about without a shirt on at all."

The probation worker crossed the grassy bank and stood close to her. Sam grew suddenly fearful, her eyes darting to the other four for help, but they only watched. Rachel continued to glare at her. Sam tried to meet the probation worker's stormy eyes but felt too uncomfortable as he loomed over her.

"Zip up your fucking jumpsuit right now. You're in no position to talk back to me, girl." The dark tone scared her more than any shouting could have. This was not the same man who greeted her kindly at the beginning of community service yesterday, and who gently scolded her for running off. He stayed there, glowering, almost daring her to refuse him, until Sam unfolded the sleeves from around her waist and slipped them back over her bare shoulders.

"Sorry," she breathed, afraid that if she spoke any louder her voice would falter. The probation worker strode away to a bench not far from the group. He could keep a closer eye on them while they cleaned and fixed the broken swan boats. But, Rachel observed with displeasure, it was only a short time longer until Sam picked up her embarrassed behavior again. When they began to repaint the same boat she could overhear the privileged little girl muttering under her breath about how she shouldn't be there. Rachel didn't appreciate the odd looks from passersby in the Public Garden, but she supposed that was the point of community service, to humiliate you with manual labor so that you didn't want to break the law again. It would probably be a big enough deterrent for Sam, Rachel reasoned. Sam claimed to have been caught while making "art", but Rachel had a feeling that was just some stupid way she was trying to rebel against her parents.

_'Poor lonely rich girl,'_ Rachel thought sourly, shooting another glare at Sam, who was lazily dipping her paintbrush in the green can of paint. _'Thinks she's being edgy and unique until she actually has to face the backlash. Bet she'll crawl back to Daddy and gladly suck up that trust fund without acting out again._'

Rachel noticed Ryan at the next boat suddenly freeze and imitate Sam's mad dash to hide. She followed his dismayed stare and saw a group of three guys, roughly their age, walking closer to them than any of the other park-goers. They were looking at Ryan.

"Hey, fucker!" the shortest of them called. "They finally bag ya for being a perv?" They all laughed. Ryan's face turned crimson and he pretended like he hadn't noticed them. It was obvious that he had. Luca stood from where he was bent over, scrubbing grime from the bottom of the boat to stare at them.

"Nah, man, I heard he got bagged for breaking in to some old lady's house to steal her pearls," the one with long brown hair corrected his buddy. They laughed again.

"Shoulda thought better of that," the first one said. "You were always so slow in gym. It's the reason everybody whaled on you so often."

"That and because he's just a freak," taunted the third, who was arguably the most attractive of the three. But that wasn't saying much, and if you asked Sam or Rachel, both would say they preferred looking at the homeless man who lived outside the Bowdoin entrance to the Blue line to the three guys harassing Ryan, because at least he had all of his teeth and a straight nose.

"Piss off outa here!" Luca shouted at them. They gave him a look and then laughed. Luca, starting to grow angry, took several threatening steps toward them. "Do you know why that ginger kid is here doing community service?" he demanded, pointing at Kevin. They glanced at Kevin, still amused. "Because he strangled puppies when he was a teenager. They're only just letting him out, but he's still fucking unstable! You never know when he's gonna strangle somebody else. It'll be you next!"

Sam felt a strange tug in her gut as she heard the words, but the three guys bothering Ryan looked horrified. The shortest of them grabbed his buddies and hurried off.

"Why did they believe that?" Ryan wondered aloud. He seemed more perturbed by their frightened departure than the abuse they were throwing at him. Luca's thoughts were racing.

_ 'Everybody is believing everything I say... My parents about Emilia, them all about why I was late this morning, and those pricks about Kevin... What is going on?'_ he wondered_. 'It's almost as if I have some kind of power over them.'_

"Because they're friggin' idiots," Sam snorted. She rolled her eyes and groaned, "I _so _don't belong here."

"Yeah, neither do I, Princess!" Kevin exclaimed. "All this forced labor could chip my manicure!" Sam felt her cheeks grow hot in frustration, and Luca laughed at her. Only Ryan noticed how furious Rachel looked.

"Listen up you little bitch," Rachel snapped. She charged up to Sam, pointing one long fingernail at her dangerously. Kevin rubbed his hands together in excited anticipation as he watched Sam quail before the older girl's sudden ferocity, and take a step back. "You _do_ belong here. You fucked up just as much as the rest of us. I've seen people go to jail for less than fucking graffiti and the only reason your perky little ass isn't there now is because your daddy is the mayor. You're lucky to be here among the rest of us. Don't think you're any better because you pronounce all your r's and go to fancy hair salons and drink tea in the parlor with your mum! You fucked up. You're doing your community service just like the rest of us. Welcome to the world of fuck ups and nobodies, where you have to answer for what you did wrong. Shut up and learn your fucking lesson!"

Luca thought Sam might cry and he braced himself. But instead Sam straightened up and narrowed her eyes. She and Rachel were nose-to-nose, just centimeters apart.

"Your breath smells like the Blue line," Sam drawled out, accentuating what little Boston accent she did have. Kevin burst out laughing, and laughed even harder when Rachel socked Sam hard in the gut. Sam gasped and stumbled back, clutching her stomach. Luca was impressed by her until then.

"You really wanna go with me?" Rachel shouted, advancing once more on Sam. Sam squinted up at her, trying to regain her breath. No, she most certainly did not want to go. Rachel was clearly the clawing, hair pulling type. But then again, Sam had to admit that she was as well. Surprisingly, Ryan rushed to intervene.

"There are people looking!" he hissed.

"So? Aren't you sick of her whining and talking down to us?" Rachel demanded of him.

"Yes, but I think your little speech taught her enough," Ryan said urgently. "Remember, the _probation worker_! He's dangerous. We shouldn't fight among ourselves, we need to figure out what to do about him." Ryan watched as the rage behind Rachel's deep chestnut eyes faded quickly to concern. She looked to where he still sat, picking at his fingernails on the bench, the wires of earplugs disappearing beneath his shaggy brown locks. She was lucky he hadn't heard. Rachel deflated, realizing she shouldn't have hit Sam. Ryan was right. She had thought the reason he usually kept quiet because he was dumb or something, but actually he seemed to have his head screwed on tighter than the rest of them.

"Rick is right," Kevin said, drawing closer. Luca shuffled toward the three of them as well.

"Ryan."

"Whatever. We need to do something about that guy. I don't think Big Red here is lying, but we need more solid proof that he killed a girl than the smell of bleach in the locker room."

"How do we do that?" Luca grunted, not excited to play Hardy Boys with them. Rachel hated Sam, Sam hated all of them, Ryan seemed to be afraid of all of them except Rachel (whom Luca considered the most dangerous), and Kevin was a complete idiot. They would make a terrible team.

"I don't want anything to do with it," Sam said plainly. "I just don't want to go sneaking after some psycho murderer." To herself she thought, _'I don't want anything to do with _them_.'_

"I think we should follow him wherever he goes for the next couple of days," Kevin suggested. Luca scowled. He didn't have time to stalk their probation worker. He had to take care of Emilia.

"Let's try just tonight and see what happens. Maybe nothing. Maybe Rachel was wrong-"

"I wasn't!"

"And maybe she wasn't. We shouldn't jump into anything too quick."

"If we don't jump into this he could kill somebody else," Rachel argued. Luca sighed heavily. Sam wondered why he was so hesitant to go along with Kevin's plan of following the probation worker.

_ 'Oh wait, maybe because it's a bad idea,'_ she reminded herself_. 'Or maybe because he's actually afraid,' _she considered with some sympathy._ 'None of us asked to get dragged into a murder-mystery. Just like I didn't ask to get my face rearranged whenever I'm embarrassed... I'm surprised Rachel wants to follow him. Since she watched it happen, I would expect her to want to stay far away from him. I know I would. Especially since we don't know why he's so violent all of a sudden.' _Sam's mind drifted from considering her fears and Rachel's, to wondering what caused the probation worker's personality flip. Yesterday he had been rather nice. Now he was yelling at her, sneering and shouting at all the others, and apparently murdering people.

_Maybe it was the lightning._

Could lightning do that? Give people the power to change their appearance when they saw somebody they didn't like? Twist a person's mind to a dark thing? Spider-Man was changed by one insignificant bite. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles only had to wander into some toxic sludge. Bruce Banner had an unfortunate run-in with some radiation. God only knows the kind of freaky things a strange electrical storm can do to a person. But did that mean the others had new abilities as well? Luca had told those guys the Kevin strangled puppies, and Kevin definitely didn't look like the puppy-strangling type, yet they believed it. Did that have something to do with the storm? The probation worker now looked more like the puppy-strangling type than the barefoot, guitar playing type he had seemed to Sam yesterday.

Sam tuned back into the argument in time to hear Kevin say cheerily, "Excellent. So tonight me, Big Red, and Al Pacino will take my car and follow him wherever he goes!"


	7. Surprise

Luca sighed when Kevin began snoring. They had been parked down the street from the trashy club frequented by Europeans and unaware college students for 5 hours now. The probation worker (whose name Luca found out was Evan Walters from a neighbor in the apartment complex they first followed him to) had not come out of the club and it was nearing 2 am. Luca wanted to go home. His parents didn't question him when he said he would be out late to make sure his friends didn't get into any trouble. Another lie. Another lie his parents easily believed. What was going on? Anybody he told a lie to, no matter how ridiculous, believed him. Luca decided that something must have happened when he was struck by lightning. That was the only explanation. Nothing else out of the ordinary had happened in the past two days. The freak electrical storm was the cause for this new found ability. Which lead him to wonder if the others had super powers too.

_'Not super powers,'_ he scoffed at himself. _'We aren't the fucking Avengers.'_

But Luca couldn't keep his gaze from sliding to the front passenger seat and watching Rachel carefully. She was staring out the window, watching the door to the club like a military sentinel watched for the enemy. He thought about what her super power might be. Something to do with intimidating people? Luca was certainly afraid to get on her bad side. Sam had been terrified of her after Rachel socked her in the gut today. Ryan didn't seem afraid though, and definitely not Kevin, who was too interested in her tits to be afraid of her.

Maybe her power was super speed. If she had been in the locker room with the probation worker and he had seen her, how did she manage to run away? Walters was clearly very fit, and had much longer legs than Rachel. He could easily overtake her. If he was strong enough to drag a drugged girl into the community center, he would certainly be strong enough to tackle Rachel to the ground and kill her too.

"Like what you see?" Rachel drawled sarcastically. Luca jumped, unaware that she noticed him watching her.

"I wasn't checking you out," he told her earnestly. "I was just... thinking."

"About banging me? Kevin seems to do it often enough," Rachel laughed. At the sound of his name Kevin woke with a start.

"What?" he mumbled.

"Nothing, just talking about how ugly you are," Rachel cooed. Kevin curled his lip unhappily, but then pointed frantically at the club.

"Look! There he is! He's got a girl with him!" he opened the glove box and dug out a pair of grimy glasses, then slammed them on his face. He saw Rachel's questioning look and said, "I need them to see far away sometimes. Now seriously guys, he has a girl with him. She looks wicked hammered..." He looked back at Luca, who frowned. This could be a simple hookup, or it could be something more sinister. One look at Rachel's paled face and Luca knew that she was thinking of the sinister. He noticed how she seemed to go back and forth on how she felt about the whole thing, but Luca didn't blame her. It was similar to how he flipped between anger, sadness, and determination during the first several months after his little sister was diagnosed with leukemia. There was no manual on how to deal with witnessing a brutal murder, nor knowing your younger sister's expiration date.

Kevin waited until Walters had driven a short way up the road to follow him. Rachel fretted about the distance and punched Kevin more than once when she felt he was getting too close.

"This is the middle of fucking Boston, everybody drives like an asshole!" Kevin shouted after the fifth bruise. "He's not gonna think anything of some pissa of a car tailing him!" Rachel pursed her lips sourly but didn't argue or hit Kevin again. Luca wished she would though, because he found it so funny the way she would frantically flap her hands and then slam her fist into his shoulder. She clearly had no idea that she was actually hurting him. Kevin probably deserved to be punched.

It only took a few minutes for them to realize that Walters was heading towards the community center. Kevin noticed Rachel's breathing speed up. He wondered if he should say something to soothe her.

_'What do you even say to somebody? 'Don't worry, he's only going to commit another murder. It'll be okay, we're only gonna follow him and risk being seen'? That'll go great. She'll probably punch me again,'_ Kevin thought as he watched her out of the corner of his eye.

"Kevin, bang a left here!" Luca ordered. Taken by surprise, Kevin did as told.

"Why?" Rachel demanded, outraged.

"We're both headed for Back Street," Luca explained. "If we don't want him to be suspicious, we should go down Beacon Street or maybe Commonwealth, past those schools, to swing in the back. Turn onto Fairfield when you see it."

Kevin had to admit that this was smart. He wondered if Luca had ever followed somebody before. With a name like Luca Pivetti, he was probably part of some Italian gang. Kevin smirked.

_'I should call him Don Corleone,'_ he thought, very pleased with himself_. 'Better than Al Pacino.'_

Because of their detour, Walters beat them to the community center. When Kevin pulled around to the front parking lot, his lights turned off like they always did in the movies, they saw the front door swinging shut. Rachel seemed frozen. Kevin and Luca slowly got out of the car, but she hesitated. Kevin stuck his head back into the car.

"Come on, Big Red. There's a psychopath in there gonna kill a girl. We can stop it," he urged her. Rachel tried to glare at him, but she couldn't muster any anger. She gripped her knees tightly to keep them from seeing her hands tremor.

"We should call the cops," she said firmly. Kevin rolled his eyes. Why was she losing her nerve now? Sure there was a dangerous man in there, but there was also the promise of action. Kevin loved a thrill and thought nothing of possible repercussions. Luca recognized this is sighed. He walked around the little white Toyota and shoved Kevin out of the way to talk to Rachel.

"We'll call the cops if we can't handle it. There's one of him and three of us. Plus I bet if something bad is going on, the girl will be grateful to see another normal girl there to comfort her instead of a cop. Ain't nobody likes those pigs. Not really," Luca said earnestly. This of course was a lie. He hadn't been mistreated by the system when he was arrested. He even had an uncle who was on the Worcester force. Not that that was saying much, but Luca had respect for the police and what they did.

"I just..." Rachel took a deep breath. Kevin could see that she was wrestling with her fears. "Okay. Let's go find him. Before something awful happens."

The first place they checked was the locker room. Luca pressed his ear up against the door but heard nothing. Kevin thought that could be simply because the probation worker already killed the girl. Just as Luca pulled away from the door, Kevin kicked it open with one dirty Reebok. The loud bang resonated throughout the empty building and for that Luca lunged at Kevin and grabbed him by the front of his jean jacket.

"Are you fuckin' retarded?" he demanded through clenched teeth. "We don't want him to know we're here! You gotta be quiet you stupid prick!" Kevin wrenched Luca's hands from him and shuffled back.

"Need to make an entrance, don't we?" he countered with an infuriating grin. Luca scoffed at him angrily and was about to make a retort when Rachel grabbed them both.

"Did you hear that?" she squealed. Luca froze and listened. After a few moments he realized he was holding his breath. Sure enough, a faint wailing and shrieking could be heard from the other side of the locker rooms.

"Is that...? From the back room?" Kevin whispered, thinking of the cobwebbed broom closets and storage rooms across from the kitchen. Rachel shook her head rapidly.

"I think the basement," she said. She looked to Luca and he grimaced, then set off running. The hallway to the basement was just on the other side of the locker rooms, but time was of the essence. The other followed, and sure enough, the sounds of struggle and screaming got louder. Luca reached the door first (and in the back of his mind decided that super speed was not Rachel's power), but found that it was locked. Forgoing the need for silence, Luca slammed his fists on the basement door. The screams became more desperate as the girl realized that somebody was trying to get to her. They heard the probation worker's voice rise, but could not distinguish his words.

Kevin and Luca both began an assault on the thick pine door. They kicked at it and shoved and tried to wriggle the stained brass doorknob, but nothing worked. Behind them, Rachel paced and panicked.

_ 'I can get through. I fell through the wall last night. And this morning I walked straight into my closet through the door. I can get through. But they'll be scared of me. What if they turn on me? I'm a freak.'_ Rachel's thoughts raced and she battled with her need to save the girl and fear of what the others would do when they found out that she could move through solid objects as easily as they wade through water.

"Move!" she shouted. Kevin and Luca paused, surprised by her cry, and Rachel pulled them out of her way. She took a deep breath and felt her heartbeat pick up and become erratic. Then she strode forward and right through the door. On the other side she heard Kevin exclaim loudly, but more importantly, a choking noise. Walters was strangling the girl. Rachel flew down the stairs and saw them in the center of the room.

"Stop!" she screamed. Rachel grabbed a hammer off the table to her right and flung it at Walters. It hit him square in the back and he released the girl beneath him. Rachel did not see her stir, nor even gasp for air. The buzzing fluorescent lights above their heads illuminated the musty space and allowed Rachel to see that she wasn't the only one affected by the electrical storm. Walters had been turned into some kind of monster. He whipped around to snarl at her. At first Rachel thought she had misheard him say something, but he truly had snarled at her. His eyes glowed a pale red, as if cataracts had stretched over the irises.

"Who?" he half growled, half shouted. Rachel, truly terrified, turned on her heels and sprinted back up the stairs. She passed through the door and grabbed both boys by their wrists and kept running. She was aware of them crying questions and stumbling and she pulled, but adrenaline pushed her onward. She burst out one of the side doors into the muggy late summer and stumbled down the stairs. Rachel was unsure if the others were still with her, as she had let go of them, but she leapt into the driver's seat nonetheless and turned the keys, glad that Kevin had left them in the car. Before Kevin and Luca had even closed the doors, Rachel blasted out of the parking lot and began to cry.

"Rachel what happened?" Luca kept shouting.

"How the fuck did you walk through the door?" Kevin demanded, his blue eyes wild with confusion.

"The storm!" she gasped. "The storm, the storm, the fucking storm! When we got struck by lightning I think something happened! It's the only explanation! For both things!"

"For you walking through the door and what's going on with Walters?" Kevin pressed. Rachel nodded and banged a sharp right, flinging the two boys who were unbuckled against one side of the car.

"I can walk through shit. Surprise!" she said with a crazy fake smile. Luca exchanged a look with Kevin.

"Rachel where are you going?" Luca asked in what he hoped sounded like a much calmer voice.

"He was an animal," Rachel continued, more tears rushing to her eyes. "A fucking animal! He hardly reacted when I threw a hammer at him and his eyes were red and he_ fuckin' _growled at me!"

"We gotta call the cops," Luca decided, fumbling with the change in his pocket to withdraw his old flip phone.

"No!" Kevin and Rachel cried at the same time.

"They'll never believe us!" Rachel said. "They'll think we're on drugs or just tell us to stop dicking around. They'll never believe that a group of community service kids and their probation worker got caught in that lightning storm, and now the probation worker is fucking whacked out and I can walk through walls. I'm just a freak now too!"

"Rachel, it's okay," Luca said. Kevin turned to him, about to ask how anything was okay, but Luca gave him a dangerous look. "I have a power too. People believe any lie I tell them. Anything."

"What?" she hiccuped, giving him a confused glance in the rearview mirror.

_'Being confused is better than having a mental break down,'_ Luca reasoned.

"Oh yeah? Prove it!" Kevin scoffed. Luca wanted to hit him, but instead he thought up a good enough lie.

"I just finished my degree from Harvard Law and I'm gonna move to England in the fall to practice," he told Kevin, lacing his words with his power. Kevin looked surprised and impressed.

"Wow good for you, man. Too bad you weren't a full lawyer when you got bagged so you couldn't defend yourself, huh?" Kevin said earnestly.

"Holy shit," Rachel drew out the words in amazement. "He really believes you."

"Of course I believe him," Kevin said, expressing confusion at her doubt. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Luca, you better use that to get him to shut up more often."


	8. Watson is an Asshole

Ryan was surprised when he saw their probation worker the next morning. He had expected Kevin, Rachel, and Luca would catch him in the act and call the police, or take him out themselves. Also surprising was that Rachel was absent from community service. Out of all of them he would have expected Sam to skip. Maybe something awful had happened last night. If the probation worker was really as dangerous as Rachel claimed, it wasn't impossible that somebody got hurt.

_'And if something bad happened, I don't think there'll be time for me to tell them what happened to me the past couple of days. Should I even tell them about Watson?'_ Ryan wondered as the four of them filed out of the locker room into the main lobby to await new of what their chore for the day would be. Instantly the probation worker's face screwed up into a grimace of frustration.

"Where the hell is the other one?" he demanded, looking from each young offender to the next. None of them spoke. If anything, the Italian one looked guilty. Walters charged up to Luca, and it took the boy all he had not to flinch away from him in fear. Sam's eyes grew wide, afraid that the probation worker might attack Luca.

"Where is she? She didn't call in sick. Where the hell is she?" Walters roared in Luca's face. Luca gaped at him and stammered, trying to come up with an explanation for Rachel's absence. Sam felt a pang of sympathy for him. Luca struck her as somebody always in control of himself, very sure and unemotional, so to see him flounder, fearful, like this make her feel even more afraid.

"She's sick," Sam said quickly. The probation worked spun to face her, his eyes dark and wild, like his hair. She could've sworn they had been green the other day. "She-she didn't know the number to call so she texted me to ask me to tell you," she lied. The probation worker grunted, apparently pacified, though still unhappy.

"You're cleaning and organizing all the closets and storage rooms in the center today," he said as he stomped off to the office. "Get working."

Once they were all alone in the largest storage room, just past the kitchen, Luca told Sam and Ryan the story of what happened the previous night. Kevin frequently interrupted to add his opinion, which earned him a glare from Luca and a roll of Sam's eyes. Luca thought Sam looked on the verge of tears by the end of the story. Ryan looked quite pale and said nothing. He didn't say very much on a regular day, though. Luca felt that the other three said enough to compensate for how little the blond boy did.

"Is her body still down there, do you think?" Sam asked hoarsely from behind her fingers. Luca tugged a greasy square of cloth from his pocket (his dad always told him to keep one in case it was ever needed, some kind of Boy Scout habit or something, Luca figured) and offered it to Sam. She seemed mildly repulsed for a moment, but accepted the handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

"There's just oil and regular dirt on that, I swear," he promised with a smirk. Luca actually had no idea what was on that handkerchief. Probably more than oil and dirt. Maybe a bloodstain or two. But Sam handed it back when she was done with a grateful smile. Her smile was very lovely, pink lips pulling into a delicate curve and creating just one soft dimple in her left cheek. Luca was so used to her scowling or pursing her lips or just looking pissed off in general, that the smile was a nice surprise.

"He would be an idiot to leave the body," Ryan said. "Especially since he saw Rachel. You said he didn't recognize her?"

"Well she didn't exactly say," Kevin told him after a moment's thought. "If he had recognized her, Luca probably would've had a different conversation with Walters." He silently cursed himself for not using the nickname he'd come up with last night.

"He's right. The body is most likely gone, and Walters didn't recognize Rachel," Luca said definitively.

"Which leaves us to discuss Rachel's apparent super power?" Sam pressed, eager to move on from thoughts of what Walters might have done to the girl.

_ 'She's not the only one,'_ Sam thought. Ryan had a similar thought, but didn't consider his new ability a "super power". There was an awkward silence, none of them knowing what to say.

"It must be hard to get those massive boobs through solid wood and concrete," Kevin said finally.

"Really?" Sam snapped angrily. "_Really_?" Kevin laughed.

"Really!" he answered, pleased with himself.

"I don't think her body mass matters. I mean she has that super power, so it obviously affects her... whole body. Like if you had super strength wouldn't it affect every muscle, not just your biceps?" Ryan pointed out. Kevin stared blankly at him to let him know that the original question had been rhetorical. Sam smiled when she saw Ryan blush and fall into an awkward silence.

"Luca," Sam spoke up slowly, after a long pause. "You and Rachel aren't the only ones with super powers."

"You've got one too?" Luca felt excitement race through him. Sam had a power? Did they all have powers? What was her power? Maybe it could help in catching Walters. Sam suddenly felt very shy, and found the floor and dust she smeared with her fingertip more interesting than the boys. She didn't want them to judge her. Kevin was definitely the kind to roll with the punches, but he might still say something derogatory to her, and she wasn't in the mood to deal with him. Also, what if Ryan thought her power was weird? Would he say something? Probably not. He was shy.

"I can change my appearance to whatever I want," she said finally. Immediately her eyes flew to Luca's face to judge his reaction. His dark eyebrows shot up in surprise, then knit together as he considered what she had to say. Sam wished that she had the power to read minds so she might know what he was thinking.

_ 'Why does it matter what he thinks though,'_ she wondered to herself._ 'Why does it matter what any of them think, really? But Luca especially?'_

"Can you make yourself look like Jennifer Lawrence?" Kevin asked eagerly. Sam wrinkled her nose at him, aware that he wasn't asking for that particular actress to see her show off her power, but because he found Jennifer Lawrence sexy. Which Sam had to agree she definitely was.

"I'll try," she said, though she sounded somewhat unsure. Sam thought hard about what Jennifer Lawrence looked like, the shape of her face, the tilt of her eyes, the proper color of her hair, and of course her curves. Sam felt shivers go through her body just like they had before when she turned into a different girl in the Starbucks, and last night when she practiced changing her eye color. The boys were amazed. Kevin and Ryan's jaws dropped, while Luca looked very perplexed, and Sam felt very self-conscious. She whipped out her iPhone to check her reflection, and sure enough, there was Jennifer Lawrence staring right back at her. Though the longer she scrutinized the figure, the more she found incorrect, like the light freckles that still peppered her nose and cheeks. Even so, Kevin let out a long whistle.

"Holy shit," he breathed. Sam shook her head, flipping her hair back and forth, and before their eyes, it became much more blonde and wavier. Ryan noticed that the freckles stayed, and how Sam's eyes hadn't changed much. He figured she was still getting used to it and working out the kinks.

Luca was not seeing what the other two were seeing, though. Sam looked exactly as she had moments before. While Kevin whistled, the only thing Luca noticed was a slight halo of light around Sam's face, almost as if her skin was glowing. It was barely there, however, and had Luca not been waiting for something to happen, he would not have noticed it. Why wasn't he seeing Jennifer Lawrence in front of him? Sam was still there, clear as day, with her soft blonde hair and adorable freckles. Why couldn't Luca see the effects of her power?

_ 'They'll think her power is way more awesome than mine,'_ Ryan was thinking dejectedly. But he knew he wouldn't be able to lie if they asked. He was a terrible liar. And sure enough, Kevin turned to him, his eyes glinting with excitement and challenge, asking Ryan if he had a power as well. Ryan bit the tip of his tongue, thinking, then met Kevin's stare.

"I can talk to animals," he murmured.

"You can what?" Kevin asked, putting his hand up to his ear to better illustrate that he hadn't heard Ryan. An action which Ryan detested, as teachers and schoolmates had always done it mockingly.

"Speak to animals!" Ryan shouted.

"Well no need to be angry with me," Kevin said as if he was offended. Ryan scowled at him.

"Can you really talk to animals?" Sam pressed. Her earnest interest made Ryan feel much more relaxed. She wasn't going to judge him, he could tell. At least not in this moment.

"Yes. My cat, Watson, called me ugly," Ryan told her with a brief grin. Instantly Sam burst out laughing, and for a split second Ryan was afraid she was laughing at him. But by the way she truly grinned at him, Ryan realized she was laughing with him. In retrospect, the rude tabby had been quite funny.

"How mean!" Sam giggled. Though he was still perplexed by his inability to see Sam's power, Luca smiled as well, the corners of his mouth curling up and revealing dimples none of them knew he had. "What did he even say to you?"

"Well I got home and said hello and I heard this voice say 'Hello to you too, ya ugly fuck' in the thickest Boston accent I've ever heard- more even than Luca's. But I didn't know where it came from so I was a little freaked out. I thought the lightning had messed up my brain."

"More than it already was?" Kevin interjected. Sam reached across and punched his arm in the same spot where Rachel had many times the night before. Kevin glared at her, but decided not to share the next jibe he had planned about Ryan indulging in bestiality.

"I live by myself in this little apartment, not too far from the Garden, and it's actually quiet so sometimes I talk to Watson, so I said out loud 'that was weird'. And then he said 'No weirdah than yuh crooked ass nose and that stupid mop on yuh head. Get a friggin' hai'cut ya monkey'." Ryan paused again while Sam laughed. He had never heard her laugh before, only scoff and whine. It was a louder sound than he would expect from somebody as petite as her, but a very pleasant one. If happiness had a specific sound, he decided, it would be Sam's barking laughter.

"So you found out about your power because your cat is the biggest asshole ever," Luca finished. Ryan nodded, really smiling now. He had been so afraid they would judge him for having a boring power. But he supposed it wasn't so boring after all. At the very least he would be able to get them to like him more with stories of all the rude things Watson said to him.

"Once I told him I could understand he just said, 'Good, now understand this, ya fuckin' asshole: this shit ya feed me is disgusting! I wouldn't feed this to that slutty maine coon cat that lives in the alley and eats week-old rat bones'.

"I hope my dog doesn't hate me!" Sam chuckled. Ryan shook his head.

"Every dog I've seen since the electrical storm has been so happy. Especially the labradors and bull dogs. They just love everything. What kind of dog do you have?"

"A shih tzu."

"Ah that's not a real dog," Luca teased. "Dogs the size of a shoe box aren't real dogs." Sam pursed her lips at him, and he laughed. Ryan was overwhelmed by how well they had reacted to his power. In that moment he felt like they were all becoming friends. Even though he knew they would have to return to the subject of Walters, Ryan was happy with the carefree laughter and wished it did not have to end.


End file.
